


Rude and Ginger

by OMG_Mangos



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Alien Character(s), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Life and Time, Psychic Abilities, Romance, Ten deserves to be happy, abilities, powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 16:12:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16021442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMG_Mangos/pseuds/OMG_Mangos
Summary: ~ The Doctor showed her the universe, and she took his pain away in return.But there is so much more she can do, so much more she can be.So much more that both of them are not aware of yet. ~The Doctor's new human companion is special in a lot of ways.For example: the Doctor wants her to be more than just a companion of his, for some reason.And: she might not even be human.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!   
> So, I'll try to make it short:   
> This story is set after "The Christmas Invasion". Rose decides not to travel with the new regeneration of the Doctor, leaving him alone and heartbroken.   
> (please note: I really love Rose, and I wish this in no way to be canon. I just wanted to explore the possibility of another companion for Ten, and another love interest.)
> 
> I hope you will enjoy!

When you think of London, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?  
Is it Big Ben? Is it Buckingham Palace? Is it Piccadilly Circus? Is it the numerous alien invasions that seemed to have chosen London as their number one docking point in the past few years?

Well, I’ll tell you what it is for me: Rain. Pouring rain. Of course, there is rain in other places, or so I’ve heard. Not that I get around much. But rain in London is not just rain... every time it really rains – and that’s almost every time these ungodly clouds up there empty themselves onto us – you feel like you have to grab two of every animal species and rescue them on a giant piece of wood.

And rain it did when my story began. I was not even really sure if this was rain anymore; perhaps it was just the end of the world. I would not have minded the latter, really. It was cold, it was wet, it was grey and windy and I hated it. Sacrificing this planet to make this godforsaken rain stop seemed like a fair deal to me. Then again, I always did love to be dramatic. 

I couldn’t even see where I was going. I had pulled the hood of my yellow raincoat as far over my face as possible and even without it I couldn’t see farther than my own feet. I just wanted to get home.

Hurriedly, I walked into a narrow side street. Now it would not be far anymore. Sprinting down the alley, I looked downwards as to avoid any major puddles as well as possible. Not that it was any use anymore; my black sneakers were completely soaked. But before I could finish that thought – 

BAM.

I ran into something full speed. Something large and solid. Something wooden. Something... blue? 

From my position on my bottom on the wet pavement, where that thing had rather ungracefully sent me to, I undertook it a closer inspection. It was a blue box, a telephone box. Or rather, a _Police Public Call Box_ , whatever that was. It said so at the top.   
What was even more curious, though, was the fact that only one hour ago, this thing had not been here. This little street was usually deserted; there was no way a car could pass through here. So how had it gotten here?

Suddenly, I became aware of the fact that my hood was no longer on my head and rain was uncomfortably trickling down my hair, my neck and into my eyes. This day was going absolutely not excellent.

Furious about how against all of my expectations this day had managed to turn out even worse, I jumped to my feet and gave that stupid blue box a passionate kick. To my very surprise, a door that I had not been aware of flew open and revealed the strangest room that I ever laid eyes upon.

It was large – impossibly large considering the outer measurements of the Police Box. And it looked technical, but not in any way I had seen before. If I had had to describe it in just one word, it would have been _alien_.


	2. The Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A strange man in a strange blue box, hiding so much pain.

Eyes as big as plates, I slowly walked into the box, that, from the inside, was no longer a box. It had corridors channelling off the circular room that I was now standing in. That particular room had some sort of control console in the middle, with dozens of buttons and levers and other things I could not have named. 

As I made my way around that console, a strange feeling took hold of me. This place was obviously alien, no way denying it. And although I was excited and my heart was beating twice its normal rate and all my senses were alert, I was not scared. Almost as if being here was somehow... right. 

In this moment, a man stepped through the door I had kicked open earlier. Or maybe he was not a man after all, as he seemed not in the least taken aback by the strangeness of this place. He sure looked like a man though, and he was not bad at doing it: brown, untidy hair, slim and tall and brown deer eyes. The trenchcoat and the suit he was wearing underneath suited him very well. 

The next second I was disgusted by my absolutely inappropriate thoughts. Here I was, just wandering into some weird alien box and drooling over someone who was most likely alien too and perhaps about to kill me or eat me or whatever aliens did to people these days. 

For a moment, I considered going into hiding, but it was too late: the probably-alien-man closed the door and slowly, head hanging low, walked towards the round console. Then he finally lifted his head, and his eyes locked with mine. We just stared at each other. 

And then it hit me. 

You see, I wasn’t entirely human either. Or perhaps I was, I didn’t really know. But there was this thing that I could do, ever since I could remember. I could sense when people were in pain. It was a little like the sensation of wind on the skin, except that it was in my mind. The gusting wind coming from this guy almost blew me off my feet, metaphorically speaking. 

But just sensing it was not the only thing I could do. I could _help_. If I got close to someone in pain, I could be comfort. I could take their pain, put it on me instead. I could cope with it for them. Of course, I never took all of their pain. After all, it was theirs and they rightfully owned it. It was not mine to just remove completely. However, I took enough of it so that they were not so overwhelmed anymore; so that they could pull through, so that they would feel like even though they were falling apart right now, there would come a time when they could be whole again. I took their hopelessness. 

Most likely it would have been smarter for someone with my abilities to keep quiet about it – unless they wanted to end up in one of the government’s institutions for extraterrestrial research. But I could not _not_ use it; I just couldn’t. Whenever I encountered someone in pain, something in me awoke. The more severe the pain, the more severe the urge to help. This might sound pretty selfless, heroic even, but I wasn’t my active choice, it was more of an instinct. 

And so it was right now: the pain radiating from this strange man ran deeper than anything I had ever felt before and all of my caution and reason went out the window. Without hesitation, I took a few steps towards him. 

“Hello,” I said softly, “Let me help.”

Without thinking twice, I crossed the last distance between us and pulled him into a hug. Both of us were soaking wet and it was kind of awkward because he was a lot taller than me, but it didn’t matter to me. I reckoned it didn’t matter to him either, because very slowly, as if in trance, he closed his arm around my back as well and his head sank onto my shoulder. 

The familiar heat started growing in my chest and spread to my eyes and hands, which I knew would now start glowing in a greenish light. It always looked pretty freaky, so I was glad the man could see neither my eyes nor my hands. 

I put out my metaphorical feelers, and I didn’t have to search for long: there it was, a very fresh pain, like an open wound gaping in the mind of this strange man. It ran deep, no doubt. But below that – dear god, below that lay what seemed like centuries of pain and loneliness. Impossible for me to take care of all of this at once; I feared it might just kill me. I wondered how on earth he was still alive with all of this weighing him down.

So I decided to focus on that fresh pain. It was somewhat like breathing in; allowing the pain to transcend into me, to torment me instead. Of course, what I was breathing in was toxic and stung, but I was prepared. 

And here it came; loss and sadness and fear and regret filled me up and a name sprung to my mind: Rose Tyler. I wanted to cry, scream, go back in time or just lay down and give up. But this was not new to me. I just locked the pain inside me and breathed through it and waited for it to subside. Because that’s what pain always does in the end. 

I took as much of his agony as I dared and then broke the connection. Slowly, my hands and eyes went back to normal and the heat in my chest subsided. 

I felt him shiver in my embrace and let go, took a step backwards. 

“You okay?” I asked. 

His eyes were a little glassy and when he responded, he still seemed to be in some kind of trance.

“Yeah... I just feel a little... strange...”

“Are you sad?” I suggested ever so helpfully. 

He furrowed his brows and looked at the ground. “Yes,” he responded in a thoughtful voice, “I’m very sad... but somehow I...” 

I waited for him to finish his sentence, but he never did. Uncomfortably, I shifted my weight from one leg onto the other. Now that I no longer had the overwhelming urge to comfort a complete stranger, this situation was turning very awkward very quickly. 

“So... do you wanna talk about it?” I offered lamely. 

Still not looking at me, he murmured: “I had this friend, see. Brilliant, she was, fantastic... we travelled together. But then I changed... and she didn’t want me anymore. I... I don’t... Hang on.”

Suddenly, the glassy expression faded from his face. He stood a little more upright and finally looked at me; _really_ looked at me this time. His eyes were sharp now as he eyed me suspiciously. 

“Why am I telling you all this?” he demanded. Even his voice was different now; alert and also kind of cocky. 

“Because I asked you and you elected to reply,” I shot back and sure enough, all softness had disappeared from my voice, too. 

The man furrowed his brows and started walking around me. I followed his movements with my head and raised an eyebrow. I was very uncertain about what was happening and what I was going to do now with this strange man in this strange place, and it scared me. But I would rather have died than admit to any living creature in the whole of creation that I was scared, and that included this man. 

“It must have been so,” he just said now, “But why would I do that? Why would I...?” 

He came to an abrupt halt, now standing face to face with me again. “Who are you?”

“Well, excuse me, but last time I checked, that was none of your business. Let me check again – oh, wow. It still isn’t. What a surprise.”

“If it’s none of my business, then why are you wandering around in my spaceship? How did you even get in here?” He crossed his arms and looked at me like a mother scolding her child for breaking her favourite vase. That made me furious. 

“Because,” I answered aggressively, stressing every word as if talking to someone extremely stupid, “That idiotic blue box of your was standing in my way and –“ 

I stopped, my eyes widened. “Did you... did you just say spaceship?”

“Yup.”

So I had been right. 

“So then this is...? Then you are... alien?” I asked excitedly. Finally, I wouldn’t be the one hearing about another alien contact on the news. I would be on the news; I would be the news _myself_. 

“Last time I checked, that was none of your business,” he answered defiantly, clearly referring to my comment earlier. 

I pressed my lips together. Why did I have to behave so impertinently all the time? Clearly, it did not get me very far in life. Still, I could not stop now, either. 

“Fine. I’d better be going, then,” I snapped, having no actual intend to do so. This was so new, so exciting.

“Yeah, you should go,” the alien man agreed. I did not move a muscle. 

We stared at each other frostily for a moment, then, as if on cue, broke into a grin. 

“I’m the Doctor,” the man said eventually, and his voice was a lot gentler now, and his grin spread to his eyes. 

“Huh. Well, _Doctor_ , nice to meet you.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m... Ginger.”

“Ginger?” The Doctor examined me from my soaked sneakers over the blue jeans, my emerald green sweater and the yellow rain coat to my face, which was covered in what seemed like hundreds of freckles (just like every other inch of my body), then to my eyes that were the same colour as my sweater and eventually to the great deal of very, _very_ ginger hair that adorned my head. There, his eyes lingered. 

“How... fitting,” he said sheepishly after a while. I rolled my eyes. 

“It’s not my real name, of course.”

Now, he just looked utterly confused. “It’s not?”

“No, ya great buffoon. I thought we were just telling each other silly incognito names, _Doctor_.”

“But... I am the Doctor!” he protested. 

“Don’t be stupid, no one’s named the Doctor.”

For a moment it looked like he was going to argue back, but he seemed to decide that arguing with me would not get him very far (which, in all honesty, was a smart choice). Instead, he pondered: “Perhaps you should have given yourself a name that was even more obviously just an incognito, considering what a stupid bloke I am, eh? Like _Nagger_ or _Pain In The Neck_ or _Freckle-Face_...”

“Oi! That’s rude!”

He chuckled a little. “Ginger,” he then went on, “I always wanted to be ginger, you know? And now look at me. Rude and not ginger.”

I considered this for a moment. 

“Well,” I said, “Here I am, proper ginger. Which means that together, we could be Rude and Ginger, if you will.”

“ _Rude and Ginger_ ,” he repeated thoughtfully. Then a smile spread across his face, and he beamed at me. “Rude and Ginger. Yes, I’d very much like that!”


End file.
